I sit here on this Thursday night, scrolling through Spotify and I find
Quantum Flux by Northlane and I give it a listen as I go through my old Metalcore playlist. I'm sort of enjoying it but not really, this song used to be my favourite about 10 years ago, I flick through other the songs on my once favourite and carefully tailored metalcore playlist and I end up skipping most of them.
I then realised these songs doesn't represent me as a person anymore. It made me think about how much of me has changed over the years,how I used be this metal dude who would shit on anything not metal because I was so darn cool (lame). "I've gone soft", I thought to myself as I chuckled, but there was a level of melancholy there. It made me think of people I don't really talk to anymore and how I associate this kind of music with them as it was what we used to bond over. I changed in a lot of ways, my outlook, my style, what I did in my free time, my ways of thinking. Whilst they all stayed the same and that's perfectly fine but we didn't really relate to each other anymore and we kind of faded away. I still love them but that metalcore angsty nihilist chapter had come to a close.
It sort of made me feel existential, like I've lost a piece of me but gained another, I have new friends and we bond over music just like I did with my old friends, is this going to happen again with them? Probably! but I'm ok with that, I'm happy where I am now. I find it really interesting how we (or at least I do) associate different songs and genres with periods of out lives. I like to think of them as bookmarks to different chapters of me.
What's the point of this thread?
I want know if you have any similar stories around sentimental music or genres, what's your favourite from 3, 5, 10 years ago? How does it make you feel? Does/did it represent you as a person? What songs used to represent you or time periods in your life? Did they or do they bring you comfort? I'd love to know!
I leave you with
one of my current favourite songs which I think fits quite well thematically. Please consider listening to it as you read this thread!